Salem, an American Wizard's Tale
by blackmoonsedge
Summary: I've decided to try my hand at telling a story set in the HP universe, though at has nothing to do with the cannon story and characters. I do hope to reference the original books during the course of my own writing. Anyway, this is the first chapter introducing the main character, Salem Black, and the mysteries surrounding him. I will be borrowing from HP more in future chapters.


Chapter One:

The First and Last Fight

Salem Black woke before his parents had even poured their coffee, shuffled to the sink in the adjoining bathroom, brushed his teeth. All routine. Half an hour later, he finished showering—he enjoyed long showers—and dressed in an outfit he had assembled the night before. Nothing flashy, just a pair of khaki shorts, a white button down, and a maroon sweater; at his mother's insistence, he decided to forego the striped green bowtie. She reminded him how the boys in his class mocked the last tie he wore, and that was enough to dissuade him. Even so, he tucked the bowtie into his satchel, just in case he sensed a change in his classmates' attitudes.

Even though it was the middle of July, the weather had already begun to grow cool in the suburbs outside of San Francisco; even the leaves on the trees started turning red and yellow at their edges. Salem preferred this chilly weather, though. It was perfect for a closet stuffed wall-to-wall with sweaters, coats, pullovers—every form of outerwear imaginable. Though not yet eleven years old—his eleventh birthday awaited him in November—Salem had a precocious sense of style, or at the very least, a sense of what he liked to wear. He crept into the kitchen to fetch a piece of toast, but his mother caught his eye before he could scamper back to his room. Lately he preferred to eat alone.

"Where do you think you're going, mister?" Mrs. Black asked, left eyebrow raised.

"I just wanted some toast. That's all." Salem replied, eyes cast to his mother's feet.

"Oh really? Well, I think you should have a full breakfast. Out here. With your parents."

At just over five feet tall, Ariadne Black was a surprisingly imperious woman. Part of the reason, Salem thought, was that her eyes never seemed to be the same color. They seemed to cycle from brown to green to blue every time he looked at them, and the effect was unnerving. Salem set his toast down on the kitchen table and took a seat. Outside a few bluebirds were singing along the telephone wire. Some dark clouds looked to be rolling in.

Mrs. Black placed a plate in front of Salem, then proceeded to spoon a meal onto it from various skillets and pots. Soon his plate was completely buried in fluffy yellow eggs, sizzling maple bacon, crispy hash browns, and a caramelized mixture of roasted peaches, apricots, and nectarines. The sight and the smell together reminded Salem that passing up his mother's cooking, no matter his desire for privacy, was a foolish idea. He quietly ate his food in small morsels. Mrs. Black sat down and gave a small laugh.

"What's wrong?" Salem asked, spearing a piece of fruit.

"Hmm?" His words seem to snap Mrs. Black out of her reverie. "Oh, nothing. It's just that you eat like a little rabbit. You've always eaten that way. It's funny."

Salem considered this.

"Well, you raised me to have good table manners. It seems natural." He gave a small smile.

Mrs. Black nodded and smiled, took a sip of her coffee. "I suppose you're right."

Salem watched his mother as she got up to take their plates to the sink. Her hair, cut short and tied in a bun, didn't seem as dark as it normally did. He thought he saw a gray hair or two. It was strange to think of his mother aging. He wondered if her hair had always had a few grays and he was only now noticing.

"You two are always up before me. It's getting to be embarrassing!" Mr. Black, Salem's father, had appeared, still robed, in the entryway of the kitchen. His thin glasses slightly askew, he tried to brush back his matted hair to no avail while Mrs. Black handed him a cup of coffee.

"You should take a cue from your son and not sleep in so much."

"I know, I know." Mr. Black said, smiling. "I think we should get a different mattress. Ours is too comfortable."

"Maybe you should try setting another alarm." Salem opined, passing his father as he left the kitchen. Mr. Black bent down and playfully rustled his hair. Salem quickly began mussing it back into place, slightly annoyed.

"Maybe you're right."

"I'm always right when it comes to setting alarms."

Mrs. Black made her husband a plate as he sat down, searching through the piled up newspapers on the table for the most recent one. Lewis Black was not much taller than his wife, though he did not command the same level of authority. He had delicate features, a narrow face, thin arms, a number of cowlicks that kept his hair looking permanently disheveled.

Salem's features were also delicate, but in a slightly different way. He had narrow shoulders, an almost too-large head covered in thick, yet smooth black, short limbs, and a fairly pale complexion. Even though he was almost eleven, he still seemed to retain some of his baby fat. His most unusual feature, by far, were his eyes, which, unlike his mother's, didn't change color. They were unmistakably violet. Stranger still, his pupils had begun looking more reptilian. If Salem's eyes were abnormal to his parents, they never said anything. He sometimes wondered whether it was all in his imagination.

"So are you excited for your last day of summer school?"

"I guess so, Father."

Mr. Black turned to his wife, beaming. "Ariadne, I can't believe our son's going to be starting ninth grade in September!"

Mrs. Black busied herself with the dishes. "Of course he is. He's our little genius, isn't he?"

That word "genius" always made Salem flinch as if he had a tickle in his ear. Salem took pride in his intelligence and his schoolwork, enjoyed reading and studying, but the idea that he was special unnerved him. He didn't want to be special. Special kids were teased or intimidated into helping tougher or more popular kids get better grades. Special kids earned praise from their teachers and the scorn and jealousy of their peers. Salem did the best he could to keep quiet all throughout school, but eventually his teachers took it upon themselves to trumpet his accomplishments, to celebrate his "winning intellect." Seeing that Salem was excelling far above normal fifth grade standards, Mr. Black negotiated his son's promotion to the ninth grade in order to accelerate his education, to get him into college sooner. Mrs. Black didn't agree with her husband's decision—she worried that Salem's emotional growth still needed to catch up with his intellectual abilities—but in the end she relented. For his part, though Salem was excited about taking more challenging classes, he also feared being rejected by older kids who might resent him for being skipped up. He didn't really want to go, but he was too polite to make his feelings known.

"I'm not a genius, Mother. I just do my work."

"Nonsense," Mr. Black interrupted. "You're a bright boy with a bright future."

Salem opened his mouth to speak, but the words didn't come. He simply closed his eyes and nodded.

"Yes, Father. Of course, Father." He could feel heat radiating from his cheeks. "I should probably leave now. School's in half an hour and I'm a slow walker."

With a pair of hugs and kisses (on his forehead) Salem slung his satchel over his shoulder and made his way through to the door, unaware how quickly—and drastically—his life would be the next time he set foot inside his home.

In order to be skipped up to the ninth grade from the fifth, Salem had to take advanced classes over the summer to get ahead. He didn't like the idea when it was first proposed, but acquiesced quietly to his father's desires to attend in order to please him. Truthfully Salem enjoyed the classes he was taking—trigonometry, advanced French, world literature, anatomy and physiology—and was happy to have a reason to leave the house and do something away from home. He had begun to pull away from his parents, not because he resented their constant presence over his shoulder, in every aspect of his life from his style of dress to his education. It was simpler than that. He had simply started to develop a desire to be secretive, to have some sort of private life apart from what his parents knew, and one of the biggest secrets Salem didn't tell his parents was that he somehow got on the wrong side of Colin Collins.

Colin Collins was the only son of Vice-Principal Candace Collins, and had always disliked Salem for as long as they knew each other. Colin, a tall boy with sandy hair and noticeable dimples, was smart and driven, a good student, but had a vindictive streak that had grown over the years from largely harmless to occasionally violent. Salem suspected that his mother put a lot of pressure on him to be the best in all subjects, to be the all around top student at Golden Grove Elementary. Unfortunately for Colin, Salem was the most academically gifted student in all their classes, and this summer had only exacerbated the enmity between them.

Being naturally reticent and fearful of conflict, Salem avoided Colin at all costs, eating his lunch in their English teacher's classroom, and never walking home until he was sure all the other kids at the school had already left. Colin's threats had grown bolder over the course of the two months they had spent in the same advanced classes, so much so that Salem knew it was only a matter of time before they actually came to blows. Luckily, or unluckily, it didn't take long for Salem to find out when they would be since Colin Collins was waiting for him at the iron gate that formed the Golden Grove's entrance.

"Hey Salem, how's it going?"

Salem didn't dare make eye contact. He scrunched his shoulders up at the slight hint of menace in Colin's voice.

"I said 'how's it going?' It's rude to ignore people you know?"

Salem stammered, "I-I-I'm sorry! It's going good—I mean, well!"

Colin took a few steps forward. Salem scrunched his shoulders up further, closed his eyes tight. He waited for the shove, the punch. Something, anything. Instead he felt a hand rest gently against his shoulder.

"You seem kind of nervous, Salem. Loosen up." He was grinning.

"O-okay." Salem released the tension in his body. "I just thought—,"

"—What?" Colin took a small step back. "That I was going to hit you or something?!" He placed his hand on his chest and scoffed, offended.

"No, no, no!" Salem pleaded. "I mean, I just thought—,"

"—You're not wrong." Colin's expression morphed into a serpentine grin. "It seems like if I pounded you now, I wouldn't have anything to look forward to for the rest of the day."

"But I don't want to fight you!" Salem backed toward the gate.

"Well, then you'll be an easy target, huh?"

For the rest of the day Salem couldn't concentrate on anything. He didn't raise his hand once during class, kept his head so close to his desk it looked like he could've been sleeping, and tried his best to tell one his teachers about Colin's threats. Every time he tried to catch one of his teachers between classes, though, Colin appeared, glowering, out of nowhere, which was enough to silence Salem from uttering even a word. The hours ticked by too quickly, until finally the last bell rang and the entire school was dismissed to continue their summer break. Salem tried to slip out unnoticed amongst the torrent of his classmates, but James Rigby and Daniel Acevedo, two of Colin's field hockey friends, grabbed him around the arms and pulled him out toward the blacktop where a crowd of boys had gathered to watch the impending fight. Salem couldn't believe how many of his classmates had remained on campus, hadn't gone home yet to celebrate the rest of their summer vacations, because they wanted to see Colin Collins, the Vice-Principal's son, beat him up.

"He tried to run, but we caught him." Daniel said slavishly, almost as if he were expecting some sort of treat.

"Good work guys. Good work." Colin said, while he absentmindedly cracked his knuckles. The crowd of boys had slowly started to form a circle with Colin and Salem at its center. Salem could feel his heart quickening like a heavy drumbeat through his thin body. He tried to find a hole in the circle but everywhere he turned he just saw more scowling, smirking faces.

"There's nowhere to run, Salem." Colin gloated, taking a few steps forward. He was at least a head taller than Salem. His dimples seemed to sink further into his cheeks the longer he grinned.

"I don't want to fight you!" Salem protested, on the verge of tears. The only thought running through his mind: _Where are all the grown ups and why aren't they here?!_

"Too bad." Daniel shouted from the throng.

"Fight, fight, fight!" James started a chant that soon drowned out any other sound.

Salem was distracted by the chant, still looking for an exit, when Colin lunged forward and struck him in the chest with his right hand. He fell against the crowd behind him, but they kept him from falling, pushed him back onto his feet.

"C'mon sissy!" Colin shouted over the crowd, "This isn't going to be much fun if you don't fight back!"

He lunged forward again but this time Salem managed to duck the punch. He tried to bolt through crowd in front of him, but Daniel, James, and the rest of the field hockey team blocked his path. He quickly turned around to find another exit, too late. Colin grabbed him by his sweater and threw him to the ground. Salem's back hit the blacktop with an almost glass-like tapping. His calves were scraped, but as far as he could tell, he wasn't bleeding. No one tried to help him up, though a few faces in the crowd seemed less enthusiastic about the spectacle than they initially were. Most of the boys continued to jeer, whoop, and holler.

Salem sat up on his elbows, sweat pricking his forehead. He was scared, but an unfamiliar feeling was slowly swallowing him. Rage.

"What's a matter sissy? Break a nail?"

Colin was half-shouting at Salem, half-shouting to the crowd. "Let's see if you've got some makeup in that faggy purse."

He bent down and started trying to rip Salem's satchel from around his shoulder. Operating purely on instinct, Salem did something he'd never done before. He fought back.

While Colin was struggling with the strap of his bag, Salem lifted his leg and planted a solid, square kick right into Colin's right shin. Colin let out a howl that reminded Salem of the banshees he'd read about in a book of Irish folklore, then collapsed in a heap on the ground. As Daniel, James, and several other boys rushed forward to check on their fallen leader, Salem sensed an opening. Scrambling to his feet, he darted quickly through a hole in the circle and started running as fast as he could toward the cafeteria in the very back of the school. A few boys noticed and gave chase, but their pursuit was half-hearted. Though many boys at Golden Grove disliked Salem for being something of a sissy know-it-all, most didn't share Colin's burning hatred.

Though shaken and a little sore, Colin quickly got back to his feet and started looking desperately for Salem. He managed to catch sight of him as he rounded the corner behind the cafeteria and began running after him.

Behind the cafeteria there wasn't much except for a pair of large dumpsters and a pile of cardboard boxes. Salem was nowhere in sight, so Colin assessed the scene. He thought the fence was too high for Salem to climb, and that the dumpsters were too filthy. He slowly approached the pile of boxes, careful not to make a sound, but Salem wasn't behind them. A piece of his sweater, though, had been left behind when it ripped. Colin noticed that the door to the cafeteria was open, so I started walking off in that direction.

After ten, maybe twenty minutes had passed, and the rest of the boys, realizing that the fight had been canceled, started heading home, Salem emerged furtively from one of the dumpsters. Grime slaked his face, mixing uncomfortably with the salt in his tears. He climbed down from the dumpster, careful to find his footing, then proceeded to check the condition of his clothes once he'd managed to plant his feet on the ground. To his dismay, his khaki shorts were soiled with muck and the collar of his button down had been completely torn, in addition to the holes in his sweater. Salem noticed that the cafeteria door he had opened was now closed, so he started walking at a fast pace toward the front of the cafeteria. Then came a low, cold chuckle.

"Where do you think you're going?"

Salem froze. Colin turned the corner, grinning. The dimples on his cheeks were so sunken in they looked as if they might be permanently pressed that way.

"Leave me alone. Everyone else's gone now so there's no more audience." Salem tried to look brave, but couldn't summon the rage that had aided his escape twenty minutes earlier.

"I don't need an audience to smack you around. Especially after you kicked me in the leg like that."

Colin's grin seemed to stretch and hold far longer than a normal grin ought to. He staggered forward, resting heavily on his left leg.

"You should go get that checked." Salem backed toward the dumpsters. Colin said nothing, though his eyebrows had started angrily twitching.

"I don't understand why?! Why are you doing this?! What did I ever do to you?!"

Colin stopped, his grin softened to imperious smirk. His eyebrows continued to twitch.

"Why? Why?! Because you're weak. And you're a sissy. And you act like a little faggy girl. And you think you're smarter than me."

Colin paused between each statement, spitting them like droplets of poison.

"I don't like it. It's weird. You're weird."

"No, I-I'm not! I'm normal." Salem felt one of the dumpsters against his back. "I'm not weird."

Colin's mad grinned returned. "Yes! Yes you are! You're a little sissy freak!"

With that Colin shoved Salem against the dumpster, pinning him by his throat with his left hand while he reached back with his right. Salem fastened his eyes shut, turned his face away, and as he did this he began to feel another new sensation. Unlike his earlier rage, it was a physical feeling, a strange pressure that seemed to pushing against his body from behind, from below. Suddenly he heard a strange sound, something like the gnashing of metal, and felt Colin's hand suddenly let go of his throat. He still felt a choking feeling though, a tightness around his throat that seemed to only get worse. Eventually everything went dark.

When Salem opened his eyes, he felt dizzy, unbalanced. He tried to stand but found he lacked the strength. Then eh noticed first that he lying on the ground next to the dumpsters. He put a hand to his forehead and felt some scratches, but nothing serious. Then he noticed a pair of legs stretched out before him, Colin's legs. He was also lying on the ground. Salem started to prop himself up against the dumpster but stopped when he saw the rest of Colin's body.

He was face down on the black top, seemingly unconscious and covered in blood. It pooled around him, nearly as dark as the concrete itself, from a wound between his neck and shoulder. Salem look around, panicked, for the source of Colin's wound, but saw no one else there. They were completely alone. Then Salem heard the sound of footsteps, quick footsteps, the sound of a woman, most likely the Vice-Principal, in heels heading toward their location. Salem looked around again, frantically, for whoever or whatever had done this to Colin. He thought he should start screaming now and warn whoever was coming in case the source of Colin's wounds was waiting to claim another victim. Just as Salem was preparing to scream, he felt the air in his lungs suddenly vanish. The person coming to investigate scene at just turned the corner, and it wasn't the Vice-Principal.

It was Ariadne Black, Salem's mother.


End file.
